[Sca-cooks] non-sweet Elizabethan dishes

[Kirrily Robert]

Jadwiga wrote:
> Hm... Part of the problem is that your target audience is classifying
> anything with a sweet ingredient in it as 'sweet'. I looked at spinach
> with currants and the bean cakes and saw them as non-sweet despite the
> presence of fruits. But then, I put pineapple chunks in my stir-fry too.

Yup, I agree.  I think my friend was being pretty seriously nitpicky on
this one, and she admitted that she's never actually noticed it as a
problem at an actual feast, but it was something which occurred to her
when she read my menu.

> I would suggest looking for more carbohydrate vegetarian dishes. Finding
> dishes without a single sweet ingredient from the Elizabethan period...
> hm.. that should be an adventure...

The Elizabethan cookery books have surprisingly few carbohydrate dishes,
actually.  It's quite weird.  I haven't found a single straight-forward
carb dish yet... it's all either pies (eg tart of rice, which is really
more custard than anything), mixed stew type thing (eg duck with
turnips), or sweet desserts (eg various sweet breads).  I would welcome
counter-examples.

Yours,

Katherine

--
Lady Katherine Rowberd (mka Kirrily "Skud" Robert)
katherine at infotrope.net  http://infotrope.net/sca/
Caldrithig, Skraeling Althing, Ealdormere
"The rose is red, the leaves are grene, God save Elizabeth our Queene"